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What Cultural Genocide Looks Like for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh

TOPSHOT-AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA-KARABAKH-CONFLICT

S eptember 2023 saw the tumultuous and traumatic departure of over 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh . This mass exodus of an indigenous people from their homeland followed nine months of starvation-by-blockade , which culminated in a murderous military assault on Sept. 19.

These men, women, and children, terrified for their lives, left behind entire worlds: their schools and shops; their fields, flocks, and vineyards; the cemeteries of their ancestors. They also left behind the churches, large and small, ancient and more modern, magnificent and modest, where they had for centuries gathered together and prayed. They also left behind bridges, fortifications, early modern mansions, and Soviet-era monuments, such as the beloved “We are Our Mountains” statues. What will happen now to those places? There is no question, actually.

We know well what happened in Julfa , in Nakhichevan : a spectacular landscape of 16th-century Armenian tombstones was erased from the face the earth by Azerbaijan over a period of years. We know what happened to the Church of the Mother of God in Jebrayil and the Armenian cemetery in the village of Mets Tagher (or Böyük Taglar) —both were completely scrubbed from the landscape using earthmoving equipment like bulldozers. And we know what happened to the Cathedral of Ghazanchetsots in Shushi, which was, in turn, shelled, vandalized with graffiti, “restored” without its Armenian cupola, and now rebranded as a “Christian” temple. The brazenness of these actions, as journalist Joshua Kucera wrote in May 2021 , “suggests a growing confidence that [Baku] can remake their newly retaken territories in whatever image they want.”

The annihilation of millennia of Armenian life in Arstakh was enabled by the inaction and seeming indifference of those who might have prevented it. The United States and the European Union speak loftily of universal human rights, but did nothing for nine months while the people of Arstakh were denied food, medicine, fuel, and other vital supplies. They did nothing to enforce the order of the International Court of Justice demanding back in February 2023 that Azerbaijan end its blockade. That inaction clearly emboldened Azerbaijan to attack—just as it will encourage others to do the same elsewhere.

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Read More: The U.S. Keeps Failing Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh

It’s important to understand the stakes of this kind of cultural erasure: These monuments and stones testify to the generations of Armenians who worshipped in and cared about them. To destroy them, is to erase not only a culture, but a people. As art historian Barry Flood observed in 2016 about the destruction of cultural heritage by the so-called Islamic state since 2014, “the physical destruction of communal connective tissues—the archives, artifacts, and monuments in which complex micro-histories were instantiated—means that there are now things about these pasts that cannot and never will be known.” The Julfa cemetery is a tragic example of such loss.

If history is any indication, ethnic cleansing tends to be followed by all kinds of cultural destruction, from vandalism to complete effacement from the landscape. The latter tactic will be used with smaller, lesser-known churches. It will be a sinister way to remove less famous Armenian monuments, which will serve the narrative that there were no Armenians there in the early modern period to begin with.

Falsification will also occur, in which Armenian monuments are provided with newly created histories and contexts. The 13 th - century monasteries of Dadivank (in the Kalbajar district) and Gandzasar (in the Martakert province), both magnificent and characteristic examples of medieval Armenian architecture, have already been rebranded as “ancient Caucasian Albanian temples.” Expect these and other sites to become venues for conferences and workshops to highlight “ancient Caucasian Albanian culture.” As for the countless Armenian inscriptions on these buildings, khachkars, and tombstones: these, as President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev announced in February 2021, are Armenian forgeries , and will be “restored” to their “original appearance” (presumably through gouging, sandblasting, or removing of Armenian inscribed stones, as was done in the 1980s).

Finally, there will be a celebration of the “multiculturalism” of Azerbaijan. “Come to Karabakh, home of ancient Christians,” people will say. “Please ignore the gouged-out letters on that stone wall, for it is not an Armenian inscription. There were never Armenians here!" Except for soldiers and invaders, like the ones depicted in a reprehensible museum in Baku, featuring waxen figures of dead Armenian soldiers —a sight so dehumanizing that an international human rights organizations, including Azerbaijani activists, cried out for its closure.

This is how cultural genocide plays out. A little more than 100 years ago was the Armenian Genocide waged by the Ottoman Empire, followed by largescale looting, vandalization, and destruction of Armenian sites across what is now modern-day Turkey. The prospect of a second cultural genocide is now on the table. Except now, Armenians will watch the spectacle unfold online, enduring the trauma site by site and monument by monument.

In 2020, Armenian activists called for international monitoring of vulnerable sites in Nagorno-Karabakh by UNESCO and other heritage organizations. Nothing happened. Now is the time for the world to protect what Armenian culture remains in Nagorno-Karabakh. If we don’t, what culture will be next to go?

Want more fresh perspectives? Sign up for TIME POV , our opinion newsletter .

The original version of this story misstated the president of Azerbaijan's name. It is Ilham Aliyev, not Ilhan Aliyev.

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karabakh war 2020 essay

After Nagorno-Karabakh War, Trauma, Tragedy and Devastation

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For Armenians uprooted from their homes, and for Azerbaijanis returning to uninhabitable towns, “It’s going to be very hard to forgive.”

By Carlotta Gall and Anton Troianovski

Photographs by Mauricio Lima and Ivor Prickett

FIZULI, Azerbaijan — Crossing into territory that Azerbaijan recently recaptured from Armenia is a journey into a devastated wasteland reminiscent of a World War I battlefield. The road passes miles of abandoned trenches and bunkers, and village after village of ruins, the white stones of homesteads scattered, every movable item — roofs, doors, window frames — picked clean.

The absence of life is eerie.

Wrecked Armenian tanks and armor lay beside the road and in hilltop positions, testament to the devastating power of Azerbaijani drones. Abandoned uniforms and equipment signal a panicked retreat by Armenian soldiers as Azerbaijani forces seized control of the district in early November.

Decades after the surrounding territory was seized by Armenia, the town of Fizuli, once a prosperous agricultural settlement of some 30,000 people, has become a forest, its ruined public buildings smothered by trees and undergrowth. The fate of the larger town of Aghdam, further north, is even more stark, its buildings split open to the skies on a desiccated plain, its main bridge destroyed.

karabakh war 2020 essay

“It’s going to be very hard for me to forgive them,” Elmaddin Safarov, 47, an army veteran, said of the Armenians, as he gazed at the wreckage of Aghdam, where 17 of his relatives died.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnically Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan, has been one of the world’s most intractable territorial disputes . A six-year war ended in 1994 with Armenia claiming not just Nagorno-Karabakh but also great swaths of surrounding territory, and driving more than 800,000 Azerbaijanis into exile.

Azerbaijan regained control of Fizuli and Aghdam, part of the territory that Armenia had controlled, after six weeks of a blistering military offensive that ended with a Russian-brokered truce . Most of the core of Nagorno-Karabakh remains in Armenian hands, patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.

The war’s violence — the most intense conflict in Europe or its periphery this century — has layered fresh trauma and tragedy on top of decades of devastation.

For Armenians, it is families uprooted, a homeland lost, thousands of soldiers killed while defending against a fearsome 21st-century war machine. For Azerbaijanis, it is the legacy of a quarter-century of expulsion from their Soviet-era houses, from territory that is now recaptured but that may not become habitable for years.

And while the war may be over, a repository of hatred, reinforced by reports of atrocities by both sides, including videos of executions and beheadings of prisoners, promises to linger for generations to come.

Just days before, as Mr. Safarov was taking in his homeland’s devastation, a chilly mountain fog was creeping through the trees and filling every crevice of a military camp hidden off a village road on the other side of the front line, to the north. There, Armenian volunteer soldiers, some in their 60s, in sundry sneakers and hats, their faces blank and weathered, listened to their commander in silence and sadness.

The commander, retired Col. Artur Aleksanyan, 63, was telling them that it was time to go home.

“Everything is only beginning,” he pledged in a soft voice. “I’m sure we will return to our lands.”

Colonel Aleksanyan’s men, asked about the war, fixed on the horrors of Azerbaijan’s “suicide drones” that hovered over the battlefield, waiting for a target. The ordnance was so precise that Armenian soldiers operating battle tanks would drive onto the battlefield, fire off a round and jump out and run for cover, the soldiers said.

“It was hell,” one man kept repeating.

Reviewing his troops’ positions at the front, where the heavy weaponry had just been withdrawn, Colonel Aleksanyan picked his way through the dense, sticky mud past unexploded cluster bombs with their telltale red ribbons. The hillside was pockmarked with blast craters, some of them filled with twisted metal, moldy bread and human excrement. Along the ridgeline, the troops had dug trenches, a few feet deep and barely wide enough for one man to sleep in while a comrade manned the machine gun above him.

Colonel Aleksanyan was still dealing with the stomach injury he had sustained in the last war, in the 1990s, and the catheter tube snaking out of his uniform as he trudged up the battlefield was a reminder of that conflict’s unhealed wounds. He pointed out the valley below where, this fall, Azerbaijan had sent waves of infantry; his unit held their ground, and the scores of dead lay there for weeks, the stench drifting up to the trenches, until after the war’s end.

“We need to analyze our mistakes and after this, we will return,” Colonel Aleksanyan told his troops. “All the Armenians of all the world stand behind us.”

Armenians believe that the Soviet Union’s early decision to make Nagorno-Karabakh part of Azerbaijan is a historical wrong.

Colonel Aleksanyan was on the victorious side in the 1990s, when Armenia captured not only Nagorno-Karabakh proper but also surrounding territory inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis.

To Armenia, occupying so much Azerbaijani territory was necessary to assure Nagorno-Karabakh’s security. To Azerbaijanis, it was an injustice that they were determined to reverse.

Now, despite its celebration of victory, Azerbaijan has recovered a mostly desolate and destroyed region.

“It looks like a hell,” said Umud Mirzayev, head of an Azerbaijani news agency, whose own village was among those ruined. “It used to be so green; it’s a place that was famous for farming, for grapes, cotton and sheep.”

Two former college classmates, returning to the town of Fizuli for the first time since fleeing the war 27 years earlier, struggled to find their way through ruins smothered in brambles and sprouting trees.

“It was impossible to pass along the roads because they are full of trees and undergrowth,” said one of them, Atakshi Babayev.

His companion, Nureddin Namazaliyev spotted the imposing czarist portico of the regional newspaper building, one of the few monuments still recognizable, and instantly knew his way home. His father had worked as editor in chief of the newspaper, Araz, for 50 years, and he had often walked with him to work.

But when he reached their old home, nothing remained.

“I could not find even a small piece of my house, not a piece of glass, not a single nail,” he said. He took instead some soil from the yard and brought it back to sprinkle on the graves of his parents in their ancestral village. “That was a very big thing for me because they could not go back,” he said.

Mr. Namazaliyev recalled that his cousin, who was held by Armenian forces as a prisoner of war, was forced to work dismantling houses in Aghdam. The stone, famous for its golden color, was sold, he said.

Vagif Hasanov, 61, the mayor of Aghdam, was blunt in his view of why Armenian forces destroyed the city. The graceful 19th-century central mosque is the only building left standing in Aghdam. Defiled by Armenian graffiti, it was used as a cowshed.

“They wanted to hurt Turks and Muslims,” Mr. Hasanov said. Would he contemplate Armenians returning to live in the city? He answered with a curt “No.”

It was the purposeful destruction of the city and its heritage that upset Mr. Namazaliyev the most. The newspaper and its printing presses were gone, the cinema and the cultural center had vanished, and the central Allakbar mosque had been reduced to rubble. The fine vineyards had been uprooted and turned to dust.

“They even damaged the soil of Fizuli,” Mr. Namazaliyev said.

Azerbaijan’s officials have pledged to offer reconciliation and equal status to Armenians living on its territory, but few can see it working in practice.

Armenians believe they are targeted by Azerbaijanis because Armenians are Christian, and they fear Azerbaijan’s increasingly close alliance with Turkey, which continues to deny the Armenian Genocide that started in 1915.

“There is no reason for Armenians to want to live under Azerbaijani rule,” said Gerard Libaridian, a former adviser to Armenia’s first president and a retired professor of Armenian history at the University of Michigan. “It would be a domination. It would not be a governance.”

Many Armenians say they will keep fighting for Nagorno-Karabakh to be recognized as an independent country, despite an international consensus that the territory is part of Azerbaijan.

“How can we talk about justice?” said Garik Melkonyan, the director of the Armenian newspaper Aravot and a member of Colonel Aleksanyan’s unit of volunteer soldiers, rejecting the idea of reconciliation with Azerbaijan. “History shows that they can’t give us anything.”

Some Armenians now acknowledge that opportunities for a lasting peace were lost over decades of halting and unproductive peace talks.

Mediators tried to at least allow Azerbaijanis to return and resettle some of the outlying districts such as Aghdam and Fizuli. But for years Armenia held on to them, seeing them as a bargaining chip for independence or secession for Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s leaders considered, but in the end never could agree, to letting go of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The deadlock was complicated by Armenian politicians and activists around the world increasingly taking the position — disputed by Azerbaijanis — that all of the captured lands were rightfully Armenian. And when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh — known in Armenia as Artsakh — in August 2019 and declared that “Artsakh is Armenia,” he sent the unmistakable message that the maximalist approach had won out.

For years, foundations funded by members of the Armenian diaspora have pushed for Armenian settlement of the occupied regions of Azerbaijan outside the core of Nagorno-Karabakh, arguing that they are also Armenia’s rightful lands.

“We have lived in this place for 5,000 years and we are only leaving it temporarily,” said the primate of the Armenian Church in Britain, Bishop Hovakim Manukian, in a goodbye sermon at the church in the village of Hak, or Minkend in Azerbaijani. “We have to come back. We have to come back and take over our land.”

A plaque in the church described centuries of pillaging and massacres by Turks and Kurds that wiped out the Armenian population of the area. The renovation of the church was financed by Virginia Davies, a lawyer in New York, in memory of her grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide .

“For me and for all Armenians worldwide — and we are united — we cannot believe what has just happened to us,” Ms. Davies said in her farewell address at the church last month. “We will not cede our historic lands.”

But there was little mention of the ruins all around the village and the remains of houses dotting the hillside for miles along the road. Azerbaijanis’ desire to return to their homes here — even if it meant war — has long been a driving force in their country’s politics.

Now it is those ruins, visible across Nagorno-Karabakh and the territories controlled until recently by Armenia, that may feed a new wave of Azerbaijani anger at their neighbors as the damage and neglect of the last quarter-century come into view.

Many Azerbaijanis say they are ready to accept Armenians remaining in Nagorno-Karabakh and even for Russian peacekeepers to protect them. But they insist on their territorial sovereignty and want to see a change in the general Armenian stance.

“Why should we fight, take guns and kill each other?” Teymur Haciyev, who was displaced from his home in the city of Shusha at the age of 9, said of the Armenians. “We really wish this was a good lesson for them. Maybe they will forget their dreams.”

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The Nagorno-Karabakh war: A new balance of power in the southern Caucasus

karabakh war 2020 essay

On 9 November 2020, Russia announced that Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to a ceasefire and a resolution of their long-standing dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh province, the Armenian occupied enclave in Azerbaijan. The agreement ended the six-week war between the two countries—their third since the early 1990s—and shifted the existing balance of power in Azerbaijan’s favour.

This outcome is primarily attributable to Azerbaijan’s clear military superiority, the result of a concerted military build-up by Baku over the last decade. While Azerbaijan reportedly received advanced weaponry from Israel, it was Turkish assistance—hardware as well as intelligence support and military advisors—that proved decisive. In particular, Turkish military drones were key to Azerbaijan’s prosecution of the war. Outmatched on the battlefield, Armenia held out hope that Russia would intervene to stop Azeri advances the ground. When that support failed to materialise, and Azeri forces captured the strategically important city of Shusha, Yerevan had no choice but to admit defeat and accept Baku’s terms.

The ceasefire locked both parties’ troops into their positions as of 9 November, meaning that Azerbaijan would continue to hold territory in Nagorno-Karabakh gained in the previous six weeks, while setting a timetable for the withdrawal of Armenian troops from all occupied Azeri territory. The agreement also provided for the deployment of a Russian peacekeeping force of 1,960 troops at several points around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor, which connects the enclave to Armenia, for a minimum of five years. A joint Russian-Turkish surveillance centre will be established in Azeri territory to monitor the ceasefire and terms of the agreement. Finally, the agreement stipulated the creation of a safe passage between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, the Azeri exclave separated by Armenia. While it was not part of the agreement, Azerbaijan and Turkey agreed separately to a Turkish military presence in Azerbaijan for an unspecified period of time.

Although the agreement did not resolve the fate of those parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that were not taken by Azeri forces during the war, the day after the ceasefire went into effect, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev declared that all of Nagorno-Karabakh would come under Azeri sovereignty, and he ruled out the possibility of autonomy for the province. With Russian peacekeeping forces on the ground, however, any final resolution will depend on Russian approval.

Despite the ambiguity around the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the war produced clear winners and losers.

Azerbaijan is the principal winner. In six short weeks of fighting, it reclaimed territory it had been unable to secure throughout 30 years of international mediation, and with minimal casualties. It also came out of the war with stronger ties to Turkey, better relations with Russia, and a corridor to Nakhchivan.

Turkey, too, came out ahead, securing a military presence in Azerbaijan for the first time since World War II, and the corridor between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan will facilitate Turkish trade with Azerbaijan and all of Central Asia. Russia also strengthened its influence in the southern Caucasus. In addition to its military base in Armenia, it gained a military presence in Azerbaijan for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In contrast, Armenia is the biggest loser. Having made a losing bet on Western support or Russian intervention, it sustained heavy military casualties, and thousands of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were forced to flee to Armenia. Both France and the US lost influence in the Caucasus. Unable to effectively assist Armenia or successfully mediate between the disputants as the co-chairs, with Russia, of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh, they ceded leverage in the southern Caucasus to Moscow.

The biggest regional loser is undoubtedly Iran. Tehran has maintained a strategic alliance with Armenia since the 1990s, as a counterweight to Baku and its alliance with Israel. During this war, however, it withheld any tangible aid and called on Armenia to withdraw from occupied Azeri territory, largely due to concerns about Iranian Azeris’ rising solidarity with their ethnic brethren. It is now faced with the reality of stronger Israeli-Azeri ties, a Turkish military presence in Azerbaijan, and perhaps expanded Turkish commercial influence along its northern border from Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan.

*This is a summary of a policy brief originally written in Arabic, available here: https://studies.aljazeera.net/ar/article/4845 .

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Armenia, Azerbaijan and location of Nagorno-Karabakh. Credit: RFE/RL

Armenia, Azerbaijan and location of Nagorno-Karabakh. Credit: RFE/RL

The Realist Victory In Nagorno-Karabakh – Analysis

By Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute

By Maximilian Hess*

( FPRI ) — Armenia’s  accession  to a Russian-mediated settlement with Azerbaijan over their long-running conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians, on November 10 marks a major, perhaps irreversible, loss for Yerevan. But it is not just Armenian forces who stand defeated. It also marks the trouncing of a liberal approach to the region and the supremacy of realist power politics.

In mid-September, Yerevan held significant de jure Azeri territory outside the borders of the Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO)—today, it is at the mercy of Russian peacekeeping forces to maintain control of a rump Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia moved to agree to the terms after the symbolically and strategically significant citadel city of Shushi (Shusha in Azeri) was seized by Azeri forces. Under the deal, Azerbaijan will retain Shushi, granting them control of the heights over Armenian-controlled Stepanakert, as well as its other territory gains in the recent fighting. Furthermore, Armenian forces also have to evacuate from crucial districts outside the NKAO that the country has held since 1994, and access to the Armenian mainland will only be possible through a five-kilometer-wide corridor overseen by Russian troops.

Though many other details of the settlement  remain murky and undefined , including to what extent Armenian forces can stay in the remaining territory, there are additional losses for Yerevan.

A sense of dread and encirclement could follow if Azeri President Ilham Aliyev follows through on his  comments  to allow Turkish troops to deploy to the area, amid already significant  fears  of renewed ethnic cleansing of Armenians in territory being returned to Azerbaijan. Finally, there is genuine  fear  that the democratic government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan may not survive the capitulation—the announcement led to such an outpouring of anger that Armenians stormed the national assembly and  assaulted  parliamentary speaker and longtime Pashinyan ally Ararat Mirzoyan.

The second Karabakh war, however, does not just represent an Armenian defeat. It is proof that the liberal international order is completely absent from the South Caucasus, and unlikely to return anytime soon.

Pashinyan’s surrender has even been  criticized  by President Armen Sarkissian, the sole senior government official to remain in his position following the 2018 Velvet Revolution that brought Pashinyan to power. However, the reality is that a failure to stop fighting after Shusha’s capture and after weeks of fighting had made clear that Armenia was unable to hold off steady, and extremely deadly, Azeri advances would have been disastrous and extremely irresponsible.

Pashinyan will be well aware that the same corrupt forces he ousted from power in 2018, who almost to a man are veterans of the first Karabakh war, could seek to use the loss to oust him. Other forces, such as Gagik Tsarukyan, head of the largest opposition party, already spoke out against him. Russia arguably would even prefer such an outcome, having long been  uncomfortable  with Pashinyan’s image as a liberal reformer. The November 11  arrest  of Tsarukyan and other politicians who fomented unrest in Yerevan in the wake of the deal may have staved off any such challenge, but further challenges are sure to come.

In his time in power, however, Pashinyan has been keen to avoid antagonizing Moscow. He has not moved Yerevan out of the Russian orbit politically or economically, despite having previously been a  sceptic  of Armenia’s ties with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Once in power, even when criticizing Russia’s gas politics and  arms sales  to Azerbaijan, he did so in a feint manner, sure to  remind  Moscow of its status as Armenia’s strategic partner.

While Pashinyan’s 2018 Velvet Revolution was hailed as a beacon of hope amid the populist waves coursing through Western politics by the liberal stalwart that is the  Economist¸  conferring upon Armenia the honor of “ country of the year ,” Yerevan did not receive even a fraction of the political or economic support from the West offered to Ukraine after its 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. Nor has the West given any significant support to Armenia in the latest fighting, not even bothering to attempt to cast the conflict as one between liberalism and illiberalism as with the Russo-Ukrainian war. The European Union and United States may not have said so publicly, but its economic and strategic interests in Azerbaijan prohibited such a declaration.

Where the West was active in Armenia, its actions proved counterproductive. Highlighting the failure of the West to offer an alternative route for Yerevan is the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s  failed investment  in the Amulsar gold mine, cancelled this August in light of steadfast local opposition. The United Kingdom and United States  wasted political capital  pressuring Pashinyan into supporting the project, ignoring the fact that  many of those protesting it  were among the coterie that brought him to power in the first place.

It would be unfair to say that Pashinyan’s government had any hopes of significant Western support in its conflict with Azerbaijan. There was no significant Western response to the April 2016 fighting, which was until this year the most significant in Karabakh since 1994, nor was there when conflict flared up in July 2020 along the de jure Armenian-Azeri borders.

Even advocates of the liberal order face difficulty endorsing Armenia’s position given that its 1994-2020 control of not just Nagorno-Karabakh but also surrounding Azeri districts represented an effective redrawing of borders by force (though this is often  confused ), contravening the United Nations Charter and Helsinki Final Act. The same language has been used to oppose Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and recognition of the “independence” of the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Furthermore, the realist interest  pervades : Azerbaijan is not only a significant oil supplier, with BP having led investment in the sector since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also the key to Europe’s Southern Gas Corridor strategy. Azerbaijan’s lack of democratic credentials has not  proven an impediment  to its purchase of Western arms. It has been a  major customer  of Israeli arms as well, with the relationship shored up by the fact that Baku is Tel Aviv’s  largest supplier  of crude.

It is improbable that the Second Karabakh War will change the West’s interests vis-à-vis Armenia and Azerbaijan.  Armenia  and  Azerbaijan  both stand credibly accused of using cluster munitions, and neither side has proven capable of enabling peaceful co-existence. Longtime observers of the region will recall that when the West did  back  a peace agreement in 1997—not too dissimilar from the November 10  statement  signed by Pashinyan, Aliyev, and Russian President Vladimir Putin—that then-President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan was forced to resign by the following February.

This despite the fact that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden  called  in late October for a “stop [to] the flow of military equipment to Azerbaijan.” The statement also called for the United States to lead a diplomatic effort alongside its European partners, but the Azeri military advance and Russian-negotiated agreement have precluded that outcome. It also gives legal cover to the Russian military overseeing transportation and trade between NKAO and Armenia proper, as well as between mainland Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan, on Armenia’s west. While the agreement limits the number of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh to 1,960 soldiers, it includes no limit on the number of Russian border guards who will now oversee the latter corridor, which will run along the Armenian-Iranian border.

Much has been made  of the fact that Russia has witnessed tumult on its borders in recent months, with unrest in Belarus, a coup-cum-revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,  raising questions  about whether Putin had lost his grip on Russia’s vaunted “near abroad.” While some have argued that this deal represents a potential loss for Moscow given Turkey’s key role—with Baku’s success in large part  enabled  by its use of Turkish drones—it remains to be seen how active Turkey will be in the new settlement. More likely than not, it will refrain from actions that risk upsetting its  entente cordiale  with Moscow, a relationship also enabled by Ankara’s adoption of a realist approach to power politics with Moscow.

However, the outcome in the Second Karabakh conflict, in which Moscow is a victor second only to Baku despite the defeat of its nominal ally, highlights that as an  uber-realist power  Moscow is able to turn such situations to its advantage, particularly in contrast to a West that still espouses liberal values but fails to follow through on them. Unless the West adopts a more realist approach, it is likely to remain in retreat not just in the South Caucasus, but across wider Eurasia.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

*About the author: Maximilian Hess is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the Head of Political Risk Analysis and Consulting at AKE International in London, where he also heads the Europe and Eurasia desks.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

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The Battle of Shusha City and the Missed Lessons of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

John Spencer and Harshana Ghoorhoo | 07.14.21

The Battle of Shusha City and the Missed Lessons of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

There has been no shortage of attention paid to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Commentary and analysis have produced a range of claims about what the six-week-long war means for the future of combat. What has been almost completely left out of these discussions is how the war offers stark reminders about the urban character of warfare in military campaigns.

While the situation in the disputed region has been called a frozen conflict , major combat actions between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have occurred over the region several times in the modern era—to include from 1988 to 1994 and in 2014. When Azerbaijan attacked into Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2020, the world watched closely.

Most of the reporting and analysis on the war focused on the technological superiority of the Azerbaijani military. Some commentators claimed that the advanced technologies and tactics used by Azerbaijan to decimate Armenian forces—such as the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle or Israeli Harop loitering munition (often called a kamikaze drone )—and use of proxy forces demonstrate a change in the character of warfare, show that the relevance of armor and static militaries may have come to an end, or provide the best hint of the future of war.

Despite all the coverage, the lessons missed about the Nagorno-Karabakh War are the ones showing how urban warfare remains a key part of modern combat. The most important battle of the Nagorno-Karabakh War occurred in the city of Shusha. Once Shusha fell, Armenia surrendered and entered a lopsided agreement, ceding massive amounts of their previously held territories.

City on the Hill

The greater Shusha region, consisting of the city of Shusha (Shushi in Armenian) and ten surrounding villages, sits within the heart of Nagorno-Karabakh. The city has been at the center of Azerbaijani and Armenian fighting for centuries. It holds cultural significance to both groups.

Often described as the “ cradle of Azeri culture ,” Shusha was home to Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, and writers and houses important cultural sites such as mosques and mausoleums. It also holds Armenian religious and cultural history, serving as a fortress city in the Middle Ages and still home to famous Armenian sites such as the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, the church of Kanach Zham, and a monastic convent. The city has changed hands multiple times.

Most recently, Shusha was forcefully taken by Armenia in 1992. At that time, the area was estimated to have contained over twenty-three thousand Azerbaijanis and just over sixteen hundred Armenians. During and after the battle, most of the city was destroyed and much of the Azerbaijani population was killed, was expelled, or fled. At the start of the 2020 war, the city’s population was reported to be around five thousand people, almost all ethnic Armenians .

Shusha sits perched high above other towns and cities in the region. Its views and mountainous terrain give it a strategic advantage with which the entire occupied region can be kept under control. The city is also a formidable natural fortress . Steep cliffs drop off from the edges of the city on three sides and a lone major road passes north to south along the western edge of the city. The largest city in the disputed territory, Stepanakert, is fifteen kilometers to the north along this winding road, but the straight-line distance between the two is just a few kilometers, and Shusha has the advantage of sitting several hundred meters above Stepanakert in elevation.

The city’s location provides an ideal defensive buffer zone for Stepanakert—not only the largest city in the region but also the capital of the Armenia-backed and self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh—and a critical defensive node along the Lachin corridor, a mountain pass and road that provides a link from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. Given its undisputed cultural significance and key geographic advantage to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, controlling Shusha was a major objective of both parties during the 2020 conflict.

Taking the City in 1992

When Shusha last changed hands in 1992, Armenian forces seized it from the defending Azerbaijanis. By that point in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), rampant fighting in the region had been waging for four years . One of the main reasons for the mission to seize Shusha was because Azerbaijani forces were firing heavy artillery at Stepanakert from it and reportedly moving to launch a ground attack from the Shusha region.

The Armenian operation to seize Shusha started in April 1992 with several weeks of artillery fire targeting Azerbaijani defensive positions and city fortifications. Next came multiple small attacks in the surrounding villages to draw the defenders of Shusha out of their fortifications and reduce the overall strength of the city’s defense. The Armenians eventually cut off and isolated the few hundred remaining defenders in the city—including by reportedly scaling cliffs . By the time they realized they were under full assault, the Azerbaijani defenders were unable to use their artillery to repel the attackers because the two sides’ forces were too close to one another.

The successful main assault, which began on May 8, included an estimated one thousand soldiers supported by dozens of armored vehicles, tanks, and helicopters. Despite heavy street fighting, to include tank-on-tank engagements , the city fell within twenty-four hours.

Taking the City in 2020

In September 2020, Azerbaijani and Armenian forces used tanks and launched airstrikes across the line of contact , the unofficial border between Azerbaijan and the Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh. The early fighting clearly demonstrated Azerbaijan’s military superiority, especially in open terrain when using advanced unmanned aircraft systems and long-range munitions.

In October 2020, after gaining control over most of the previously Armenian-controlled territory south of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan crossed the line of contact and started moving ground forces further west. By mid-October, Azerbaijani conventional forces had captured a key Armenian-controlled town, Hadrut , as they moved toward the Lachin corridor connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

By October 22, the Azerbaijani Lachin offensive had closed to within six miles of the town of Lachin and the vital corridor. The loss of the corridor would have severed any means by which Armenia could support forces inside Nagorno-Karabakh. In retaliation and most likely to divert pressure away from the Lachin corridor, Armenian forces launched a counterassault using dismounted forces in the heavily wooded mountain areas and set ambushes along main supply routes, even capturing seven Azerbaijani BTR-70 armored personnel carriers.

At some point between October 28 and October 30, Azerbaijani special operations forces deployed to isolate Shusha and disrupt the city’s defense. According to some reports, four hundred of these Azerbaijani forces marched for five days through the forests and ravines, being especially careful to avoid the heavily guarded Lachin corridor and surrounding villages. They divided into groups of one hundred , reportedly so that they could approach the city from multiple directions and toward different objectives.

Many of the soldiers climbed, without fire support , the steep rocks and cliffs left unguarded by the defending Armenians who seemed to believe the Azerbaijani forces would mainly attack up the main roads. The cover of darkness, ongoing Lachin offensive, and failed imagination of the defenders appeared to enable the Azerbaijani special operations forces to make their decisive move to covertly pierce the Shusha defense through seemingly unpassable forests and mountainous terrain.

On October 30, military clashes were reported just five kilometers east of Shusha. The city had already been under sporadic artillery fire since early September, causing most of the city’s residents to flee to neighboring Stepanakert . At this stage of the battle, the defending Armenian forces still held the tactical advantage as they had control of the mountains surrounding Shusha. Azerbaijani forces were ambushed and suffered heavy losses in the ravines leading up to the city and when they attempted to approach the city by road, they were exposed to frequent artillery, rocket s, and far ambushes .

Late on November 4, reports came in that Azerbaijani light infantry were fighting for the road that nears the village of Dashalti at the bottom of the Shusha’s southern cliffs. By that day, Azerbaijani forces had also secure d the mountain range south of Shusha and key portions of the Lachin corridor connecting Shusha to the town of Lachin. Azerbaijani forces also increased the shelling of the Armenian defensive positions surrounding the city with mortars.

Late in the evening of November 5, some of the Azerbaijani special operations forces had reached the main road and were able to block reinforcements attempting to aid Shusha’s defense. This, combined with the destruction of a key bridge over the Hakari River , meant little, if any, aid would come to Shusha as the town was clearly surrounded from at least three main directions . The Armenian authorities, recognizing the loss of control over the area, closed the Lachin corridor to civilian traffic—leaving eighty reporters trapped inside the battle zone.

On November 6, Azerbaijani conventional troops reached the outskirts of the town. Early morning reports surfaced that Argishti Kyaramyan , the former head of the Armenian National Security Service who had been appointed the military commander responsible for organizing of the defense of Shusha, had left the city. Not long after reports of Kyaramyan’s departure emerged, Azerbaijani forces penetrated Shusha. Once inside, they established additional blocking positions and ambush sites around the city to further prevent the defending Armenians from being reinforced or resupplied. Other soldiers also successfully captured Dashalti, the village just south of Shusha, providing immediate access to the main road into Shusha.

As Azerbaijani forces began to enter the city, they engaged the defending Armenians at close range in heavy street fighting . The Armenian forces inside the city were reported to comprise over two thousand troops , along with armored vehicles and heavy artillery. The Azerbaijani dismounted forces destroyed several tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles using rocket propelled grenades and portable antitank guided missiles . They also used heavy fires, reportedly including the Belarussian Polonez multiple launch rocket systems and artillery pieces that were at this point relocated closer to the city’s boundaries.

On November 7, foggy weather struck the area. This significantly limited Azerbaijani forces’ use of aerial observation and strike assets that had given them such an advantage throughout the war. The inclement weather prevented the employment of the TB2 Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles , enabling Armenian forces to maximize the use of their armored vehicles —T-72 tanks, and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles—for counterattacks inside the city.

Despite the counterattack, the Azerbaijani forces held their ground. They formed a defensive line in the Shusha forests and after repulsing three Armenian counterattacks , returned on the offensive, capturing the building of Shusha Executive Power and beginning to drive out Armenian forces, deliberately clearing buildings and larger areas in the city. The battle for Shusha ultimately came down to building-to-building close combat.

On the morning of November 8, the Artsakh Ministry of Defense reported that intensive fighting had taken place through the entire night along the length of the front line surrounding Shusha . Armenia also claimed that its forces had downed three Azerbaijani TB2 Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles and had destroyed twenty armored vehicles and four tanks throughout the day.

On November 9, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared total victory and control over Shusha, a move that was initially refuted by Armenia. But on November 10, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a lopsided peace deal that included surrendering all areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that had been taken by Azerbaijan during the conflict—to include Shusha.

The Urban Warfare Lessons

The lessons of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War have yet to be fully discovered. This analysis required translating multiple foreign reports and news stories, validating social media announcements and video posts, and piecing together an accurate picture from the partial and sometimes conflicting reports from the frontlines. Military analysts, international relations scholars, and other groups have begun to highlight the unique aspects of the war—from the dominance of a modernized Azerbaijani military equipped with the latest types of drone and fire support platforms to geopolitical practices of proxy warfare by Russia, Turkey, Iran, and others to the use of social media to influence multiple different groups in modern information warfare campaigns.

The war also highlights major urban warfare lessons that deserve attention. These lessons include the following:

Cities remain operational and strategic objectives in war . The capture of Shusha was a major strategic victory for Azerbaijan, and it ultimately decided the outcome of the war. Once Shusha fell, Armenia was forced to surrender out of fear that Azerbaijani forces would be able to target and possibly seize the territory’s capital, Stepanakert, just a handful of kilometers away. Cities have always been operational and strategic objectives in war. They are the centers of political and economic power for nations. They also start, grow, and expand along trade routes, key passes through ground that is otherwise challenging to maneuver through, or coastlines where ports connect global naval supply lines. In short, they are very often built on key terrain, and at the very least they offer control over important lines of communication. As cities grow in number, size, and complexity, some argue that military forces should simply avoid them and the unique challenges they pose. Shusha shows that this is simply not an option. They are unavoidable and militaries must prepare to operate in them to be effective in any war.

A full suite of modern, joint force capabilities is needed to seize and hold decisive urban terrain . Air superiority, bombing, long-range precision strikes, and unmanned aircraft systems are all enabling warfighting capabilities. It was not just the latest attack drones that won the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Urban warfare is also not solely an infantry fight. The decisive operation of the war, the physical capture of Shusha, required combined arms capabilities that leveraged special operations forces, fires, armor, engineers, and infantry in both the shaping and decisive operations. This was especially apparent by the use of fires, mobile protected firepower, and infantry units to clear urban terrain in building-to-building combat. Put simply, it required ground forces to seize and hold terrain and a host of other capabilities to enable it.

Militaries must prepare for both urban offense and defense operations . Both the 1992 and the 2020 battles for Shusha show that militaries must be capable of offensive operations to seize decisive terrain—especially cities—in military campaigns. Equally so, they show that any military that seizes terrain must also be able to defend it. In 2020, had the Azerbaijani forces that seized Shusha not been able to defend it from the determined Armenian counterattacks, their gains would have been lost. The defense of urban terrain may also buy time for a military waiting for another supporting country or the international community to come to their aid. Both battles for Shusha also show that when defending urban terrain, the defender must have layered defensive plans that include broad imagination and wargaming. Both Azerbaijani (1992) and Armenian (2020) forces left the cliffs surrounding the city unguarded assuming they were impassable.

As analysts and researchers study the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, they will continue to unearth valuable and wide-ranging lessons for the future of war. Whether the brief conflict signals a change in the character of warfare is perhaps not yet clear. But one thing in particular certainly is: the war shows that militaries must be prepared to fight for—and fight in—cities.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, co-director of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the  Urban Warfare Project Podcast . He previously served as a fellow with the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq.

Harshana Ghoorhoo is pursuing a bachelor of science in international relations at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. Harshana was a research intern at the Modern War Institute and is currently conducting research that assesses how the level of trust in AI systems impacts tactical readiness on the battlefield.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Govorkov

15 Comments

Azad

Not 2014 but 2016

Asia T

I wonder if the authors actually did their research on the history of Shushi before posting this "Often described as the “cradle of Azeri culture,” Shusha was home to Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, and writers and houses important cultural sites such as mosques and mausoleums."? This is a bullshit coming from azeri propaganda machine. Please fo yourself a service and perhaps use so.e historic sources of what the city was before 1920s

Kamran

History says this city is founded by Panah Khan who is originally Azerbaijani in mid centuries and its first name was Panahabad.

Klaus Eriksen

Yes before the pogrom in 1920 the population in Shusha/Shushi was split 50/50 between Armenians and Azeri's and therefore important for both sides culturally. The history in the past 100 years of this region is a tragedy that could have been avoided if the majority of people on both sides had been willing to compromise and coexist

Shamkhal

Are you sure that you studied the history yourself. The establishment and later history of city, demographic status through the years? Or You read only armenian stories , where they claim they discovered, invented everything and everything?)) Shusha was, is and will be an Azerbaijan city same as Kharabag!!!

Rafig Gurbanzada

a very interesting article. I recommend it to others who are interested in conflicts in Eurasia

FAtih erdogan

as a sociology student, I want to draw attention to some things

for example, Azerbaijani children who grew up in war and exile constantly played war games and constantly played sports that required Sports, hide and seek, thief-police and various team games, and with the encouragement of families, many Azerbaijani young people developed and trained themselves for today's war due to their orientation to boxing, wrestling and Far Eastern Sports

I also noticed that some of the young soldiers were my friends, and we were constantly playing combat simulations and strategy games on the computer together, and he told me that these worked strangely

in other words, more important than the weapons in the hands of Azerbaijanis in general was that the Azerbaijani Turkish children developed themselves for today's and tomorrow's war

(many people are not actually aware of this situation)

Khayyam

Thanks for objective information about Shusha

Lou Coatney

Excellent analysis. In one of my boardgames about the Russian Front/Great Patriotic War I had a rule that if a major city is lost and cannot be retaken in the defending player's next player-turn, there is a one-column combat odds shift against the defeated defender within that region – 1 or 2 hexes nearby – in the following turn, both because of both morale and transportation network disruption.

Karabagh is Azerbaijan

We liberated our lands from barbarians, who occupied our lands 30 years ago. 4 UN Security Council resolutions were the base for liberation. Thank you for great analysis

steve

anyone with logic and reason would know it wsa not azeri as history proves it as armenia. also whats with the support for azerbaijan? you didnt see videos of the azeri soldiers being tracked by drones? but armenian troops were ordered to NOT FIRE. ill find the video for you ! its seriously incriminating !

JavId farzaliyev

Thank you for your time, efforts and comprehensive analysis. It is sad to see that some triggered readers are trying to do propaganda even here, instead of just paying attention to the point of the article, which is about the relevancy of cities in modern wars. I would not want to feel the need to say it under this article, but whoever denies the city of Shusha being the cradle of Azerbaijani culture is simply brainwashed by the Armenian propaganda. A person only needs to do a slight online research to realize that dozens of poets, writers, musicians, composers, artists and even distinct music genres of Azerbaijan come from this small but powerful city.

Farhad

Thanks for the article and in depth analysis. It is also worth noting thatNagorno Karabagh, Shusha and all territories mentioned in the article are INTERNATIONALLY recognized (by all UN nations) territories of Azerbaijan. Most importantly, even Armenia itself never officially recognized independence of Nagorno Karabagh and de jure and de facto were illegally supporting separatist movement on the territory of Azerbaijan

kris

> As cities grow in number, size, and complexity, some argue that military forces should simply avoid them and the unique challenges they pose.

who argues that? control of the population centers is the whole point in most cases.

Many thanks for a good article and youtube videos I don't quite understand why Stepanakert was cut off from supply after the Lachin corridor has been cut off by Azery special forces. There is a highway leading north from Stepanakert which then connects with the EW highway from Martakert to Vardenis. This highway is shielded from observation on both sides by high cliffs which would prevent directed artillery strikes from the peak of Murovdag (taken early on by the azeri's) and also made it relatively difficult to hit with drone ordonnance. Thus I would have thought this was still a viable means of supply to Stepanakert even after the road to Lachin had been cut off. Please explain to me why this road could not be used for supply?

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karabakh war 2020 essay

Introduction

Since the 2020 war Crisis Group tracked fatalities and detentions that take place along the front lines.

A man shepherds his cows near a rocket case left by the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. REUTERS/Artem Mikryukov

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been the longest-running in post-Soviet Eurasia. In 1988, ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh demanded the transfer of what was then the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from Soviet Azerbaijan to Armenia. As the Soviet Union collapsed, tensions grew into an outright war. When fighting ceased in 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts were wholly or partially controlled by Armenian forces. More than a million people had been forced from their homes: Azerbaijanis fled Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent territories, while Armenians left homes in Azerbaijan.

From 1994 until 2020, intermittent deadly incidents, including the use of attack drones and heavy weaponry on the front lines and activities of special operations forces, demonstrated the ever-present risk that war would reignite. In April 2016, four days of intense fighting at the line of separation shook the region, killed hundreds on both sides, and foreshadowed what was to come.

The dam broke in September 2020, and full-fledged war resumed on the 27th of that month. Six weeks of bloody armed conflict finally ended in the early hours of 10 November with a ceasefire brokered by the Russian Federation. Although the deal fell short of a clear and stable peace, it brought an end to the deadliest fighting the region had witnessed in nearly three decades with over 7,000 military and about 170 civilians killed and many more wounded. Under the agreement, Azerbaijan now again controls in full the seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenian forces had held since the previous war. It also holds a substantial part of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. The rest is patrolled by a Russian peacekeeping force but still governed by self-proclaimed local authorities.  

After the 2020 war, the front line became longer and more volatile. Opposing military positions were separated from one another by only 30-100 metres. Before the 2020 war, they were hundreds of metres apart. The front line’s movement placed military positions up against civilian settlements. The Russian peacekeeping mission’s outposts were deployed along the main roads in Armenian-populated areas of the conflict zone and the main traffic artery between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, including inside the Lachin corridor. The joint Russian-Turkish monitoring centre established as part of the November 2020 agreement, sat in Azerbaijani territory about 20km from the front line. 

Casualty Data

karabakh war 2020 essay

This map indicates the casualties that have happened between the 2020-war and 16 September 2023. 

Crisis Group developed this map to track the geography of casualties along the front lines and deeper inside the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. Casualty data includes deaths and injuries of Armenians and Azerbaijanis from exchanges of fire along positions, sniper shots along with mine explosions in the conflict zone and along the front lines, aggregated monthly. All of these are plotted on a map which includes front lines before and after the 2020 war, drawn using satellite imagery, and the NKAO, as defined by Soviet-era maps. The Lachin corridor is presented as defined in current official maps published by the Russian peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Crisis Group is also aware of at least one Russian military fatality and one non-fatal injury since the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.  

Note : September 13-14, 2022 saw escalation in the areas along the 200-km Armenian-Azerbaijani state border that resulted in large numbers of casualties and detentions. We could not fully corroborate locations, but they were mapped. 

You can download our complete dataset here: 

Download XLSX | Download CSV

You can also access the original geodata showing the pre-2023 corridors and frontlines on the map here:

Download GeoJSON | Download SHP

Breakdown by Casualty Category

Killed and wounded between the 9 november ceasefire to the 2020 war and 16 september 2023., combatants killed.

Includes combatants killed in exchanges of fire, as a result of sniper fire along the front lines and by mines in the conflict zone and along the front lines laid during the last three decades.

Combatants Wounded

Most combatant injuries occur along the front lines due to  exchanges of fire and mines triggered in the conflict zone.

Non-combatants Killed

Includes civilians killed by sniper fire and mines, including civilian state agency personnel engaged in demining, construction or emergency response.

Non-Combatants Wounded

Mine explosions have become the predominant cause of injuries  to non-combatants, including civilians living in or visiting the conflict zone and staff of civilian agencies operating in the area.

Here you can download a dataset on casualties between the 2020-war and 16 September 2023: 

All Casualties:

Armenian Casualties:

Azerbaijani Casualties:

Casualties Caused by Landmines:

The front line after the 2020-war crossed civilian settlements and nearby areas. When local residents or the military intentionally or unintentionally crossed the line to the other side, they often got detained. The map reflects geographical patterns in the detentions of combatants and non-combatants on both sides of the conflict. 

Note : September 13-14, 2022 saw escalation in the areas along the 200-km Armenian-Azerbaijani state border that resulted in large numbers of casualties and detentions. We cannot fully corroborate locations, but they have been mapped

karabakh war 2020 essay

Timeline of Events

What happened on the front lines depended in part on what officials said and did in regional capitals and around the world - and vice versa. This timeline of events charts key developments in the peace process, including meetings and political statements made by the conflict parties, mediators and other foreign actors since 2015. It includes periods of relative calm as well as those of escalation and conflict. Domestic political events are included when they have bearing on the conflict’s dynamics.

Download the timeline data here:

The data presented in this section were based on reports by the Azerbaijani and Armenian ministries of defence, the de-facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities and media on all sides. Crisis Group only included reports of fatalities and wounded in this dataset if it could establish through official or media reports, the identities of those killed or injured. Military casualties included contracted soldiers and conscripts, along with border guards deployed along the front lines. Most civilian casualties occurred near the front lines or were caused by mines installed close to military positions. The bar charts show the breakdown of military and civilian casualties by nationality.

Before the 2020 War: Visualising the Data

Servicemen attend Sunday service at Gandzasar monastery in May 2017. CRISISGROUP

killed and wounded in incidents between 1 January 2015 and 27 September 2020 (excluding 2 – 11 April 2016)

Military killed, military wounded, civilians killed, civilians wounded.

Casualties by Weapon Type Used:

Reports of Incidents

Crisis Group analysts collected data regarding incidents reported by Azerbaijan, Armenia and de facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities in the conflict zone between 1 January 2015 and 26 September 2020, including both incidents that resulted in casualties and those that did not. Analysts cross-checked these reports against open source media reports.

incidents were reported along the Line of Contact between 1 January 2015 and 27 September 2020 (excluding 2-11 April 2016)

Heavy weaponry.

Both sides built up their arsenals in the years prior to 2020, including with the purchase of attack helicopters, fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank artillery systems and long-range mortars. Crisis Group tracked the use of such heavy weaponry.

Special Operations

Since 2015, deployment of special diversionary groups became a regular practice. Crisis Group tracked reports of Azerbaijani or Armenian forces crossing the front line.

Since April 2016, both sides used kamikaze drones and drones for surveillance.

The 2016 Escalation

The datasets above do not include information from the escalation that took place 2-11 April 2016. It began early in  the morning of 2 April 2016 with clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces along the line of separation. These then flared into outright fighting. Although Russia helped broker a ceasefire on 5 April, ending the worst of the violence, flare-ups continued through 11 April. The escalation left Azerbaijan in control of slightly more territory in the former NKAO and the adjacent territories for the first time since 1994’s ceasefire.

The spring of 2016’s fighting killed hundreds of people. However, exact numbers of dead and wounded remain disputed to this day. Because we do not have reliable data on casualties, we have not included the time period from 2-11 April 2016 in our datasets for 1 January 2015-27 September 2020, above.

Methodology and Terminology

A gate riddled with bullet holes near the front line. CRISISGROUP

Crisis Group generated its timeline of political developments and several datasets by collecting information regarding  casualties, detentions and incidents (uses of drones, heavy weaponry and special operations) reported in open sources in Armenia, Azerbaijan and the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh entity from 2015 onward. 

The timeline of events includes: 

  • Diplomatic activity such as contacts between the conflict parties and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group meetings; 
  • Statements by Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, or representatives of the Russian peacekeeping mission, the Russian-Turkish joint monitoring centre, the OSCE, the UN, the European Union (EU) and other relevant actors;
  • Political consultations between the Armenian government and the de facto leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh;
  • Relevant domestic developments in Azerbaijan, Armenia and de facto Nagorno-Karabakh.

Starts from: Crisis Group has used Armenian and Azerbaijani government websites, de facto Nagorno-Karabakh sources and online media outlets in Baku, Yerevan and Stepanakert to collect reports of casualties, detentions and incidents. The availability and specificity of data differs among the areas affected by the conflict. For specific time periods (in particular during the flare-up of fighting between 2 and 11 April 2016 or during the 2020 war), data is limited, disputed, or unavailable. Due to the lack of accurate data and because we judge the events of early April 2016 to represent an escalation, rather than interwar incidents, Crisis Group chose to exclude that period from our datasets. 

In tallying incidents, Crisis Group faced several limitations. For incidents that spanned multiple days, we used the last reported date. For incidents categorised as involving heavy weaponry, only those for which reports specify what type of heavy weaponry was used were included. The true number of incidents involving the use of heavy weaponry was therefore likely higher than that reflected in the bar charts. In cases when several instances of heavy weaponry, drone use or special operations were reported in the same location and at the same time, we counted these as one incident. For instance, a report detailing three types of heavy weapon use in the same location at the same time was counted as one incident involving heavy weaponry. However, when a report cites different types of actions (heavy weaponry, drones or special operations) in the same report, we counted each as a separate incident – eg, the simultaneous use of heavy weaponry and drones is counted as two incidents: one involving heavy weaponry, and another involving drones.

In counting casualties and detentions, Crisis Group has only included those killed,wounded and detained whom we could identify by name, using statements by Armenian, Azerbaijani and de facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, media reports and/or social media postings for basic biographical data, unique photos/video footage and funeral reports. 

Crisis Group’s datasets, upon which this Visual Explainer is based, are available here . We value feedback. Please send inquiries to [email protected] .

Terminology :

Crisis Group traditionally uses geographical names from the pre-conflict period of the late Soviet times. The borders of the NKAO were delineated in line with the latest maps of the General Staff of the Soviet Defence Ministry. The front lines reflect locations of military positions and trenches visible in satellite imagery available in early 2021. The geography of the Lachin corridor reproduces that in the publicly available official map of the Russian peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh of the summer 2021 period.  

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone : the Soviet-era NKAO and the former Armenian-controlled adjacent territories.

Front line(s) : the line(s) that separate(s) Azerbaijani soldiers from the local Armenian forces of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh defence ministry and the Armenian and Azerbaijani armies and armed forces along the state borders of these two states.  

Non-combatants : civilians  identified by name by representatives of the conflict parties or in media reports. Civilian casualty counts include civilians killed and wounded along front lines and by mines laid deep in the conflict area as early as the first war in Nagorno-Karabakh. In addition to ordinary residents, non-combatants include civilian state agency staff engaged in demining and other activities.

Combatants : Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces, special police troops and border guards. We are not presently maintaining a consistent count of casualties among the  Russian military contingent present in Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh or of any other foreign visitors. 

Reports of detentions : official statements, media reports or confirmed social media reports of combatants or non-combatants detained by the opposing side during the interwar periods along the front lines. Reported detentions range from several hours to weeks on end. 

Reports of incidents : incidents involving drones, heavy weaponry and/or special operations by armed forces.

Heavy weaponry : grenade launchers, rocket systems, tanks, military helicopters and/or other heavy armament, e.g., 110mm mortars and up.

Special operations : crossings of the front line by Azerbaijani or Armenian forces.

Drone use : drones used for reconnaissance or strikes in the conflict zone.

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karabakh war 2020 essay

  • KARABAKH - AZERBAIJAN

Patriotic War

The second karabakh war, patriotic war 27-12-2020.

The Second Karabakh War

Patriotic War or “Operation Iron Fist”

On the morning of 27 September 2020, Armenia’s Armed Forces launched a large-scale attack, subjecting settlements and frontline positions of the Azerbaijani army to intensive fire from large-calibre weapons, mortars and artillery devices of various calibre, following which, in order to halt the Armenian army’s attack and ensure the security of the civilian population, the Azerbaijani army command decided to launch a rapid counter-offensive along the whole front. As a result of these clashes, martial law and a general mobilization were declared in Armenia. In Azerbaijan, martial law and a curfew were declared, with a partial mobilization being declared on 28 September. The clashes escalated rapidly into the Second Karabakh War.

Many countries and also the United Nations called for a cessation of hostilities, for both sides to reduce tensions and resume talks without delay. Afghanistan, Ukraine, Pakistan, Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus expressed support for Azerbaijan. On 29 September, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although a humanitarian ceasefire, supported by Russia and mediated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, was accepted by both Armenia and Azerbaijan, with official effect from 10 October, terrorist violations by Armenia’s Armed Forces that targeted civilians led to the suspension of wounded and prisoner exchange.

The background

Especially following the 1994 Bishkek Protocol signed with Armenia, Azerbaijan, which lost 20 percent of its territory as a result of the First Karabakh War, held long-term diplomatic talks with various international organizations. The purpose was to implement UN Security Council resolutions that demanded the unconditional withdrawal of occupying forces from Azerbaijani territory. The peace process was severely shaken by populist statements such as "Karabakh is Armenia, full stop", by Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in Armenia after the colour revolution of 2018, as well as a succession of provocative and illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and other actions.

In a continuation of those provocations, in March 2019, while on an official visit to the United States, Armenia’s Minister of Defence David Tonoyan announced a policy of "new war for new lands." Tonoyan's statement was accompanied by a series of military adventures on the line of contact. In July 2020, units of Armenia’s Armed Forces used artillery fire in an attempt to seize favourable positions on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border towards Tovuz, but were unsuccessful. On 23 July, the same forces announced the launch of joint air defence system exercises with Russia. Following them, Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces hosted forces from Turkey for a number of joint military exercises until early September. Meanwhile, in August, an Armenian military sabotage-reconnaissance group attempted sabotage in the Goranboy area of the line of contact, but was forced to retreat with losses and the capture of the group's commander, Senior Lieutenant Gurgin Alberyan.

In addition to direct military provocation, and in violation of international law, thousands of Lebanese Armenians, including a large number of YPG and PKK terrorists, were resettled in the occupied territories, following the explosion in the port of Beirut and this, too, exacerbated the conflict. Tensions peaked in late August 2020 when Anna Hakobyan, wife of Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, publicized her participation in illegal military training in the occupied territories. However ineffective, these provocative actions and statements from Armenia have been assessed by researchers as a total negation of the negotiation process.

On 25 September 2020, Republic of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, in online debate at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, noted the deaths of Azerbaijani servicemen and a 76-year-old civilian, as well as serious damage to civil infrastructure; the results of Armenian attacks. Further, the president declared that more than a thousand tons of military equipment had been transported to Armenia by military cargo planes since 17 July. On 27 September, Hikmet Hajiyev, presidential aide and head of the Foreign Policy Department in the Presidential Administration, issued a statement that at around 06:00 there had been a gross violation of the ceasefire by Armenia’s Armed Forces. On the same day, Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces launched a counter-offensive to prevent further provocations and martial law was declared in the country.

The course of the battles

In the battles that followed, Azerbaijan advanced rapidly and incurred very few losses. Initially liberating a number of villages and strategic bridges, its forces had liberated the whole of Karabakh’s southern border with Iran by 22 October and they then began moving towards the Lachin Corridor on 23 October. That corridor was the only relatively major highway connecting Armenia with the so-called Karabakh entity; control of it would prevent Armenia from replenishing fuel, ammunition and military reinforcements. Until then, Azerbaijan had put the Armenian army under daytime attack from conventional artillery, mortars and even direct fire and guided missiles to halt their military convoys. During the war, Jabrayil was liberated on 4 October, Fuzuli on 17 October, Zengilan on 20 October, Gubadli on 25 October and Shusha city on 8 November.

The Shusha operation, unprecedented in modern military history

Details of the patriotic war have not yet been fully clarified, but it is safe to say that the operation to liberate Shusha from occupation will be forever in the annals of history. The crown, the beating heart of Karabakh - Shusha is a natural fortification, so it was impossible to enter the city with tanks or other heavy weaponry. There were two options to take it. Firstly, to defeat the enemy’s forces in the city by air strikes and artillery fire. Azerbaijan’s military command did not choose that way, due to the inevitably extensive destruction of the city that would result. The alternative was hand-to-hand combat, and this was the strategy adopted. Our heroic soldiers and officers traversed thick forests and deep ravines with light weapons, climbed rocks and mountains and defeated the enemy in face-to-face battle. A foreign journalist in Khankendi during the Shusha operation described the deplorable situation of the Armenians as follows: the defenders of Shusha were scattered. Dozens of wounded were taken in military ambulances to Khankendi hospital, covered in blood. The rest of the fighters, exhausted and throwing off their military uniforms, went down the mountain. Ambulances came and went non-stop. Wounded soldiers were piled on top of each other inside. Their injuries were evidence of hand-to-hand combat. Another report, published by Le Monde at the time, said that the defeated soldiers of the Armenian army left Shusha wounded and fled to Khankendi. On 8 November, the victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev gave our people the good news of Shusha’s liberation. The winning of Shusha, in fact, decided the fate of the war. The next day came news that more than 70 villages had been liberated, and one day later Prime Minister Pashinyan was forced to sign an act of capitulation, accepting the terms of the President of Azerbaijan.

On 10 November, the President of Azerbaijan, the Prime Minister of Armenia and the President of Russia signed a statement declaring a complete ceasefire and end to all military operations in the conflict zone. According to the terms of the statement, Aghdam was liberated on 20 November, Kelbajar on 25 November, and Lachin on 1 December without a single shot being fired or single casualty. The statement also announced the planned construction of new transport communications connecting the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with the western regions of the rest of Azerbaijan. Thus, Azerbaijan's military victory had forced Armenia to capitulate. The ceasefire was violated on 11 December - the first time since the end of military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh and the start of peacekeeping operations by the Russian Federation. The violation of the ceasefire was registered in Hadrut, where one Azerbaijani soldier was wounded.

Azerbaijan's military superiority

The Azerbaijani army made extensive use of the Israeli-made Harop strike weaponry during the 44-day war, including the Israel-Azerbaijan, jointly-produced Strike drone, as well as other UAVs like the Bayraktar TB2 strike drones. Azerbaijan destroyed $1 billion worth of Armenian military equipment with the Bayraktar TB2 drones alone. They were used to deliver precise strikes on enemy equipment and manpower, as well as directing artillery fire and conducting reconnaissance. Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer noted that despite an approximate balance in the respective militaries, the Azerbaijani army had a technological advantage.

Losses in the Second Karabakh War

According to information from Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defence, its armed forces incurred losses of 2907 service personnel in the war. This number may increase following DNA analysis of other bodies and enquiries into the fates of more than 100 personnel still missing. The wounded are being treated in medical facilities. Losses of military equipment were relatively minor.

Although the Armenian side confirms losses of 2,425 service personnel during the war, in reality the figure is much higher.

As a result of the 44-day war, Armenia lost 10 x S-300 missiles and their tactical-combat vehicles, 366 tanks, 352 cannon of various calibres, 22 unmanned aerial vehicles, 5 x Su-25 aircraft, 50 Tor, Osa, Kub and Krug anti-aircraft missile systems. At the same time, of particular significance was the destruction in combat operations of the following ballistic missiles: 97 Grad, 4 Smerch, 1 Tos thermobaric, 2 Hurricane, 1 Yars and 1 Tochka-U, as well as Elbrus missile complexes. The value of military equipment destroyed or captured by the Azerbaijani army is estimated at a minimum of $3.8 billion.

Foreign, mercenary and terrorist participants in the war

Prior to the conflict, Turkish sources reported that many members of the YPG and PKK from Iraq and Syria had been relocated to Nagorno-Karabakh to train Armenian armed fighters against Azerbaijan. On 30 September, they reported that about 300 PKK fighters had been moved to Nagorno-Karabakh via Iran. According to the Azerbaijani Armed Forces on 28 September, there were mercenaries of Armenian origin from Syria and various countries in the Middle East among Armenian casualties. On 30 September, Hikmet Hajiyev said that, "the international community must respond adequately to the use of Armenian terrorist forces against Azerbaijan." A number of PKK and YPG members also admitted in recent interviews with various media outlets that members of those terrorist organizations were fighting on the Armenian side in Karabakh.

Further, it is known that citizens of Armenian descent living in Lebanon, Syria, France and some Latin American countries took part in hostilities at the urging of the Armenian Diaspora, and in violation of the principles of international law. On 1 October, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that Syrian fighters of Armenian descent had been taken from Syria to Armenia.

The domestic situation in Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War; a unity of people and government

Political and economic stability prevailed in Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War; the highest level of unity was apparent between people and government.

On the morning of 27 September, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies announced that a number of restrictions had been imposed on the internet within the country to counter provocations by Armenia. The State Committee for Work with the Diaspora also appealed to Azerbaijanis living abroad not to spread unofficial, unspecified or biased information on social networks or electronic and other media. At a meeting in the Milli Majlis (parliament) discussing the military situation, it was decided to declare a curfew in Baku, Ganja, Goygol, Yevlakh and a number of regions from 00:00 on 27 September. By that order, Vilayat Eyvazov, Minister of Internal Affairs, was appointed commandant of the territories in which curfew was applied during martial law. Azerbaijan Airlines’ press service also announced that all airports in Azerbaijan would be closed to regular passenger flights until 30 September. President Ilham Aliyev issued an order for partial mobilization in Azerbaijan and instructed the State Service for Mobilization and Conscription to ensure conscription of military officials and the implementation of measures arising from military-transport requirements in accordance with approved plans. That order came into force on 28 September. The Azerbaijani Army’s success in preventing military advances by the Armenian Armed Forces and its victories over the enemy achieved along the front were met with great joy and enthusiasm by the Azerbaijani people. Azerbaijani citizens and those living abroad, as well as Turkish citizens, sent numerous letters of congratulation and gratitude to President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev for those achievements. Thousands of Turkish citizens awaiting a "command for war against the Armenians" also sent him letters, saying they were always ready to free the fraternal state from the occupiers. Also since 27 September, the country’s tricolour flag has flown on the streets of Baku, on the balconies of residential buildings, shop fronts and other facilities. People fly the flag from their homes in honour of the successes achieved at the front and the liberation of their lands. Cars are also adorned with smaller flags.

On 30 September, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, together with the Azerbaijani FA, organized a flag campaign "We are strong together." Volunteers distributed hundreds of flags in different parts of the capital, Baku.

The domestic situation in Armenia

On 27 September 2020, The Armenian government issued resolution 1585N: a mobilisation of people aged under 55. It also stated that men between the ages of 18 and 55 in Armenia could only leave the country with the written permission of the territorial military commissariats. On 29 September, the trial of former Armenian president Robert Kocharyan and other former officials accused of involvement in the post-election riots of 2008 was postponed due to the departure of former Armenian Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan to the front line. On 1 October, access to the TikTok program was banned in Armenia. On the same day, the Armenian National Security Service announced that a former high-ranking Armenian military official had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Azerbaijani intelligence and charged with treason. On 2 October, Armenia closed all roads to Nagorno-Karabakh; they were to be used only for military purposes. Due to the demoralization of the personnel of a number of frontline units of the Armenian Armed Forces, and a widespread refusal by many soldiers to fight, the Armenian Defence Ministry appealed to the women of the country. On 2 October, the Ministry established a women's battalion and began recruiting for it. Armenia’s hopes depended on its women.

Information warfare, cyber attacks

The information war waged by Armenia against Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War was also countered effectively, indeed Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the information arena, too. False news spread by Armenia was refuted in timely fashion, and objective information delivered to the global community. Cyber attacks were satisfactorily nullified.

President Ilham Aliyev, employed his deep knowledge, iron logic and irrefutable arguments to single-handedly neutralize smear campaigns by pro-Armenian media and support the effort on the information front. Some Western correspondents had been specially assigned to divert attention, citing fake information to make unfounded accusations against the Azerbaijani side. Certain of these were raised repeatedly: Turkish participation in the conflict, the use of F-35s, the involvement of mercenaries from Syria and Libya, violations of the ceasefire etc. And each time, the head of state patiently demolished these accusations with irrefutable facts and evidence, then spoke about the history of Karabakh, the causes of the conflict, taking the opportunity to convey the real truth to the world. Let's take a question during an interview with the German ARD TV channel and the president's answer. Question: When we were there, in that area, a question arose. Why is Karabakh so important for Azerbaijan? Is it a question of resources, or does it have symbolic importance? Answer: Are Alsace and Lothringen important to you? Is Bavaria important to you? Or Rhine-Westphalia? This is our land, our territory, recognized internationally. It is not a question of resources. The main resources are here in Baku. It is a question of justice, a matter of national pride, and an issue of international law. This response, brief but concise, was deeply meaningful. It was so effective that I do not believe any other Western correspondent will ask our president a similar question.

Any review of the past 17 years shows that President Ilham Aliyev has worked constantly to keep the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh on the agenda. It has featured in all his speeches and statements, at sessions of international organizations, in all his meetings with world leaders and in interviews. He endeavoured to ensure that everyone knew which side was aggressor and which victim. Now the whole world is aware. This is one of the main factors that determined success in the war. As for the victory on the battlefield, it suffices to describe two completely different scenes at its end: on one side of the front, the victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the army, Ilham Aliyev, stands proud; on the other side, Nikol Pashinyan, with an army scattered and humiliated. Our people raise portraits of their leader, Ilham Aliyev, while Nikol Pashinyan is ridiculed and the butt of jokes. "You were going to build a road in Jabrayil, Pashinyan. What happened? Where is that the road? You were building a parliament building in Shusha, what happened? It went to hell.” These words of our president are now proverbial for his people. When someone’s actions do not live up to his words, they jeer and ask: "What happened, Pashinyan?"

Azerbaijani hackers got into a number of Armenian websites and posted President Ilham Aliyev's words from the international arena, "Karabakh is Azerbaijan, exclamation mark", as well as "If an Armenian soldier does not want to die, he should get off Azerbaijani land." Pictures of Azerbaijan's National Hero Mubariz Ibrahimov were also posted on Armenian websites. A total of 90 Armenian websites were hacked in attacks that began at noon on 27 September. These sites include the country’s most popular news and video portals. And in attacks that began on the evening of 27 September, Azerbaijani hackers seized a large number of confidential documents from Armenian state structures. These documents contained much information about the State Security Service, the president of Armenia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

And also to prevent possible Armenian provocations, the Electronic Security Service of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies called on citizens not to access links on social media, and not to download files or links in e-mails or phone messages. On 29 September, the hacker group Anti-Armenia Team seized 10 GB of confidential documents from Armenia’s armed forces. Several hackers from the Karabakh Hacking Team hacked the Armenian government's electronic document management system. As a result, 50 TB of documents were obtained.

The strong will of Azerbaijan’s political leadership

On 27 September, President Ilham Aliyev chaired a meeting of the Security Council. The president said, "As you know, early this morning, the Armenian armed forces committed another military provocation against Azerbaijan. As a result, we have losses among both the civilian population and the military. I warned Armenia. After the Tovuz events, I warned them several times that they would regret it if they did not give up their dirty tricks. Our counter operation is proceeding successfully. At the same time, tens of thousands are volunteering for the army. This shows our people’s loyalty to their state."

During a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the president noted that the statement by Armenia’s prime minister, "Karabakh is Armenia, full stop", had rendered the negotiation process meaningless and the Armenian leadership's demand that Azerbaijan talk with the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic should be regarded as an attempt to change the format of negotiations. The Azerbaijani army was fighting on its own land, and the Armenian army should not be on Azerbaijani soil.

On 29 September, President Ilham Aliyev was interviewed on the Russian Channel One programme, ‘60 Minutes’. He spoke out about the criticism of Turkey: "I believe that Turkey has a stabilizing influence in the region. Turkey is a fraternal country and our ally, giving us moral support, and we thank the Turkish leadership, the president and the Turkish people for their solidarity and support. All the rumours spread by the Armenian side about Turkey's participation in the conflict are provocations. The Azerbaijani army is well prepared to defend its people and territory,” he said. Asked about the Syrian National Army fighting in Karabakh, he said: "This is also fake news. There is not one fact, no evidence, and it was put out by Armenian propaganda." - he said and the interview was over.

On 30 September, Ilham Aliyev and Mehriban Aliyeva met with servicemen wounded during the Armenian attack that began on 27 September and who were undergoing treatment at the Defence Ministry’s Central Military Clinical Hospital. The president said: “The prime minister of Armenia set conditions for us. I said a while ago that we reject those conditions. We have one condition: that they leave our lands unconditionally, completely and immediately. I said that the Azerbaijani people will never be reconciled with this occupation".

Addressing the nation on 4 October, the president spoke about illegal settlement in Karabakh: "What does it mean to relocate the parliament of the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to Shusha? Again, it is an attempt to insult the Azerbaijani people. What does it mean to build a new road from Armenia to Jabrayil? It means that there will be illegal settlement. Armenians are already being brought from Lebanon and other places, and resettled in our ancient city, Shusha, as shown on television, violating international conventions, trampling on the Geneva Convention. Does anyone have anything to say to them? I instructed all our foreign diplomatic missions. Raise this issue, tell the UN, the OSCE, the European Union, other organizations, that this is illegal! Illegal settlement is a crime! Has there been any reaction? Has the Minsk Group made a statement? It has not! Has the European Union spoken? It has not! They said that they had no interest in it. If it was of no interest then, then stay out of it now. What are you fussing about now? Nagorno-Karabakh is ours, our land, we must return there, we are returning, and will return!" he added.

On 8 November, the victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev addressed the people of Azerbaijan from the Avenue of Martyrs following the liberation of Shusha, saying, “We achieved this historic victory on the battlefield. 8 November 2020 will remain forever in the history of Azerbaijan. This history will live forever. This is our glorious victory, our day of triumph! We achieved this victory on the battlefield, not at a negotiating table. I have said many times that, despite all statements to the contrary, there are military solutions to this conflict - the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and today we are proving it on the battlefield. After 28 years, the call to prayer will be heard again in Shusha. Without this unity, without national solidarity, we would never have been able to liberate our lands from the occupiers. We have proved to the whole world that Karabakh has always been Azerbaijani land. We have proven that the Azerbaijani people have lived on these lands for centuries. We have proved that the Armenian population was relocated to these lands 200 years ago, how they were relocated and to what purpose, we have presented everything to the global community, with evidence and facts. We have proved that Nagorno-Karabakh is a historical, ancient land of Azerbaijan. At the same time, today I have visited the grave of the great leader Heydar Aliyev and bowed to his spirit. In my heart I said that am a happy man to have fulfilled my father's will. We have liberated Shusha! This is a great victory! The souls of our martyrs and the Great Leader are happy today! Congratulations, Azerbaijan! Congratulations Azerbaijanis of the world! Giving this great news to the people of Azerbaijan on this historic day is perhaps one of the happiest days of my life.”

The Armenian leadership’s desperation

On 27 September, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the Azerbaijani government of extended provocation. He said, "the recent aggressive statements of the Azerbaijani leadership, large-scale joint military exercises with Turkey, as well as the rejection of OSCE monitoring proposals" were an indication that it was preparing for war from the outset. On 28 September, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia issued an official statement about the war.

Armenia’s ambassador to Russia, Vardan Togyanyan, also said that Armenia would apply to Russia for new supplies of arms. On 30 September, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he wanted Armenia to officially recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent territory. On the same day, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said that the Turkish Air Force was conducting provocative flights along the frontline in Nagorno-Karabakh.

On 1 October, Arayik Harutyunyan said that Armenians should prepare for a protracted war. On the same day, claiming that Israel sold arms to Azerbaijan, Armenia recalled its ambassador to Israel. On 3 October, the Foreign Ministry called on the international community to recognize the independence of the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in order to "restore peace and security in the region."

On 8 October, the director of the National Security Service of Armenia was dismissed by order of the President of Armenia. Also on 8 October, the Armenian Ministry of Internal Affairs revoked the accreditation of the Novaya Gazeta magazine, saying that its correspondent, Ilya Azar, had entered Nagorno-Karabakh without accreditation and reported from Shusha and Lachin.

International Reactions to the Second Karabakh War

Turkey - "I call on the Armenian people to oppose their catastrophic government and those who play them as puppets, and take ownership of their future. I call on the whole world to stand by Azerbaijan in its struggle against occupation and oppression. Unfortunately, the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, which have ignored this issue for almost 30 years, show no sign of action to resolve it. Armenia has once again shown itself to be the main threat to peace and stability in the region. Today, as always, the Turkish nation is by fraternal Azerbaijani with all its means", said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech.

Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and Deputy Chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Numan Kurtulmuş, visited the Azerbaijani embassy in Ankara. There they met Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Turkey, Khazar Ibrahim. "The solution to this problem is very simple. Armenia must withdraw from the occupied Azerbaijani lands", the minister said there.

Turkey’s Minister of Defence, Hulusi Akar, declared that his country was with Azerbaijan, stressing that Armenia's position was the biggest obstacle to peace and stability in the Caucasus.

The fraternal Republic of Turkey demonstrated unequivocally, in both word and deed, that it was with Azerbaijan in the Patriotic War.

The United Kingdom defended Azerbaijan's just position, as well as its territorial integrity, during the Second Karabakh War. A permanent member of the UN Security Council, the United Kingdom vetoed a draft statement on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict that was prepared on behalf of the chairman of the Security Council and was negative towards Azerbaijan; thus, it was not adopted.

US - US First Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Bigan contacted Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan to urge both sides to immediately suspend military operations, use existing direct contacts to avoid further escalation and refrain from rhetoric and actions that could escalate tension in the region.

Richard Hoagland, former US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, said: "According to international law, Armenia has invaded and occupied the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, another sovereign state." He noted that the main policy of the United States was to support and protect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.

Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed in speeches that "Armenia is an ally within the CSTO, but Nagorno-Karabakh does not belong to Armenia, so Russia has no obligation other than mediation concerning military operations in Karabakh." Russia’s Foreign Ministry called on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for an immediate ceasefire. There were reports during the 44-day war of an increase in supplies of weapons and military equipment being transported from Russia to Armenia. According to those reports, weapons and military equipment were flown along a Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran route as Georgia forbade the transport of military cargo across its territory. However, Russia has repeatedly stated that the officially transported cargo consisted of construction materials for its military base in Armenia, and not of weapons and military equipment.

Italy - Italy defended Azerbaijan’s just position during the Second Karabakh War, as well as its territorial integrity. The municipalities of Sepino and San Giuliano del Sannio in the Italian province of Campobasso and the municipal commune of Corbetta in the Metroplitan City of Milan adopted documents condemning Armenia's policy of aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Azerbaijan, and expressing solidarity with the Azerbaijani people.

France - France called on Yerevan and Baku to suspend military operations immediately and resume talks. A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement that, "France is extremely concerned about the conflict."

France supported occupying Armenia in the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict. French President Emmanuel Macron's statement of 30 September on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was inconsistent with the country's mission as co-chair of the Minsk Group to mediate and resolve the conflict, and it called that mission into question. A draft resolution to recognise the ‘Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’, adopted by the Senate of the French Republic on 25 November 2020, drew justified protest from Azerbaijan.

Georgia - President Salome Zurabishvili called for reconciliation and expressed her support for the maintenance of regional peace and security. Mikhail Saakashvili, third president of Georgia, gave his opinion on his Facebook page, "My position is based on the principle of territorial integrity, ie. Nagorno-Karabakh is the sovereign territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan and nothing will change that." Georgia forbade the transport of military cargo to Armenia across its territory and airspace during the 44-day war.

Serbia - Information was received confirming arms sales by Serbia to Armenia before and during the 44-day war. Azerbaijan issued protests about this to Serbia.

Greece - gave indirect support to Armenia during the 44-day war.

Germany - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Armenia and Azerbaijan should immediately renounce the use of force in favour of detailed talks and called on both sides of the conflict to suspend all military operations immediately. He also expressed concern about the shelling of villages and settlements.

Iran - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that Iran was following the military clashes closely and that Tehran was ready to mediate a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Iranian officials denied reports of military shipments from Iran to Armenia during the war, and Iranian airspace and land routes were closed to prevent arms shipments to Armenia. There were also notable rallies in support of Azerbaijan's victories in various of Iran’s cities. The liberation of Shusha and Azerbaijan's taking control of its border with Iran were greeted with special joy in Tabriz, Ardebil and other cities. Internet footage of the Azerbaijani army attacking the occupiers, taken from the other side of the River Araz, on the Iranian border, was viewed widely.

Pakistan - Pakistani Foreign Ministry: "Armenia must suspend military operations to prevent any further escalation of the situation. We support Azerbaijan's position on Nagorno-Karabakh, which is in line with the resolutions passed unanimously by the UN Security Council." Fraternal Pakistan openly demonstrated its support for Azerbaijan during the 44-day war.

Kazakhstan - The Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for all possible measures to stabilize the situation, renounce the use of force and begin negotiations, and offered to help resolve the conflict peacefully within the scope of international organizations.

Afghanistan - The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement about the tension in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. "The Nagorno-Karabakh region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Afghanistan demands an end to the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh," the Ministry said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Shefik Jaferovich, Bosnian member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bakir Izetbegovic, leader of the Democratic Action Party, said they supported Azerbaijan, condemned Armenia and compared the situation to the Bosnian war of 1992-1995.

Israel - Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and former foreign and defence minister, reiterated in a statement to the local newspaper “Vesti” that Nagorno-Karabakh was Azerbaijani territory. "That is why no UN member state, including Armenia, has recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a sovereign body. In terms of historical reality and international law, as well as the interests of the state of Israel, our position is absolutely unequivocal. We support Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. We think that it is impossible to resolve the issue in the region without restoring that territorial integrity. In terms of history and international and national interests, Azerbaijan's territorial integrity is Israel’s official position," he said.

Hungary - A statement by Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade declared that Nagorno-Karabakh is located within the internationally-recognized borders of Azerbaijan.

The approaches of international organizations

European Union - The EU called on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to cease hostilities, reduce tensions and adhere strictly to the ceasefire. Joseph Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, also stressed the need to return to talks on a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict immediately, without preconditions and under the leadership of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. European institutions generally displayed double standards in dealing with the conflict, and have not really supported Azerbaijan's right to restore its territorial integrity, as enshrined in international law.

UN - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "both sides must immediately cease hostilities, reduce tensions and return to meaningful talks without delay." The organization said it would hold an urgent discussion on the situation in a closed-door meeting on 29 September.

OSCE - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called on both sides to suspend hostilities and return to talks.

Turkic Council - Baghdad Amreyev, Secretary General of the Turkic Council expressed deep concern over the military confrontation in the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Turkic Council called for the protection of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and the inviolability of its internationally-recognized borders, and demanded the immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

The Second Karabakh War and the Azerbaijani diaspora

On 6 October, rallies were held in support of the Azerbaijani state in the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Konya. On the same day, a rally in solidarity with Azerbaijan was held in Calgary, Canada.

On 8 October, leaders and members of the Eskisehir Azerbaijanis Association, the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (EHH) and other non-governmental organizations took part in an event at Eskisehirspor Stadium.

On 11 October, a large rally in support of the independent Azerbaijani state was held in Georgia's Marneuli region.

On 13 October, a rally was held in Milan, Italy to protest Armenia's aggressive policy, and in support of the independent Azerbaijani state.

The Azerbaijani diaspora in the Israeli city of Petah-Tikva held a rally protesting the occupying Armenian armed forces’ aggression and terrorism against Azerbaijan.

On 17 October, the Alliance of German Azerbaijanis organized a rally in Berlin with more than 10,000 Azerbaijanis protesting the death of civilians and minors, and the destruction of civilian facilities, following a further rocket attack by Armenian forces on Ganja.

On 18 October, on the occasion of Azerbaijan's Independence Day, the Azerbaijani flag was hoisted in front of the Chicago City Hall in Illinois to the sound of the Azerbaijani national anthem.

On the same day, a solidarity rally in support of Azerbaijan's struggle to restore its territorial integrity was held in Toronto, Canada.

On 21 October, on the initiative of the Azerbaijani community in Wroclaw, Poland, a permitted protest rally was held in front of the city’s municipal building.

On 26 October, protests took place in Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Salt Lake City in the USA.

On the same day, the Union of Azerbaijanis of Sweden organized a silent march from T-Central (Ahlens), Stockholm, in protest against the terrorist attacks committed by Armenia in Ganja.

On 27 October, Azerbaijanis living in London held a protest rally near the office of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

On 29 October, Azerbaijanis living in Houston, Texas, held a rally in front of Houston City Hall to inform the global community about the terrorist acts committed by the Armenian army in the Azerbaijani cities of Barda and Ganja, as well as other settlements.

On 30 October, Azerbaijanis living and studying in Italy, as well as representatives of the Turkish community, held a rally in Venice to raise awareness of the Armenian army's terrorist attacks on Ganja and Barda, and the killing of civilians, including women and children.

The Second Karabakh War and the Armenian diaspora

The Armenian diaspora was not as active as expected during the Second Karabakh War. Representatives of the diaspora living in different countries were, however, remembered for their aggressive actions.

On 11 October, the Armenian community of Los Angeles staged a protest of 100,000 people in front of the Turkish consulate, along with smaller protests in Washington, San Francisco, New York, Boston and elsewhere in the United States.

On 28 October, Armenians blocked the road in Isere, south-west France. The road to Lyon and Marseille was blocked. A confrontation broke out between those stuck in the traffic and the protesters. Not content with this, 300-400 Armenian protesters attacked and injured Turks on their way to work.

The effect on sport

Because of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, UEFA’s Executive Committee banned matches under the UEFA flag in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Representatives from both countries decided not to play home games indefinitely. UEFA monitored the situation, and the decision does not affect planning for next summer’s Euro 2020 finals in Baku.

The defeat of Armenian fascism and a new reality in the region

In previous wars, there was a tactic known as "scorched earth", by which a defensive force destroyed or looted all it could, setting fire to what it could not. This also prevented the local population, the owners of the land, from settling there. In 1977, Article 54 of Protocol No.1 of the Geneva Convention banned "scorched earth" as a tactic; it is now a war crime. 21st century Armenians are, however, using this tactic, regarded as primitive by the civilized world. As our President said, it is as if a savage tribe has passed through these places. Videos of our liberated cities and villages are heart-breaking. The savage enemy has not laid a stone upon stone, but has reduced everything to ruin. Trees have been cut down, forests cut down and burned, and land has been rendered useless. Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zengilan and Gubadli resemble deserts. Aghdam is a city of ghosts, even an atomic bomb did not destroy Hiroshima as completely. Armenia's war crimes do not end there. Two ballistic missiles were fired at Ganja, and Barda was bombarded with cluster munitions. The number of shells fired at Terter, Aghdam and Goranboy are uncounted. Hundreds of civilians - children, women, the elderly - fell victim to Armenian fascism; thousands of houses, apartment buildings and infrastructure were destroyed.

It is important that the whole world sees their fascist image. Let everyone see and know what a savage enemy we face. Let everyone know that we have destroyed not only an occupying army, but also Armenian fascism, a source of danger to humanity. On instructions from the president, members of the diplomatic corps in Azerbaijan are visiting the liberated regions, where they witness Armenia’s atrocities with their own eyes. The terrible destruction will be recorded, piece by piece, documented and submitted to the international court. Armenian fascists will surely not escape justice this time.

The enemy believed that following such destruction, Azerbaijanis would never return to those places. They were mistaken, the people of Azerbaijan have lived with a desire for 30 years to reunite with their homeland, and have breathed for Karabakh. During a visit to the liberated cities of Fuzuli and Aghdam, President Ilham Aliyev announced his plans for Karabakh’s future. He stated that all towns and villages will be restored according to a master plan. The state will provide the necessary assistance for citizens to return to their homeland. The construction of a new road from Fuzuli to Shusha and the restoration of historical roads leading to Sugovushan and Talysh villages have already begun. The Second Karabakh War has created a new reality in the region. Our beautiful Karabakh, convulsed by storms over the ages, looks to the future with great hope. After 27 years, the call to prayer is heard again in the Shusha and Aghdam mosques, and Karabakh Shikestesi is heard once more in the lands of Karabakh. Life is returning to those places after 30 years, a new cycle of life in those lands begins...

The successful end of the Patriotic War has changed the balance of forces in the region and created a new reality. We are not alone now. Fraternal Turkey is now with us at the political table. A Turkish soldier will also monitor the ceasefire in Karabakh. Messages continue to come from the highest levels in Ankara: “we will continue to stand by Azerbaijan”. This political and moral support strengthens us and prevents Armenia’s supporters from interfering. Addresses by the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey as brothers, the fact that our star and crescent flags fly together, are sources of pride for our friends and an eye-opener for ill-wishers. Today, there is no status quo lasting 30 years. The issue of status is off the agenda. Instead, the implementation of plans to restore the destroyed cities and villages of Karabakh is already in process.

If we look at the many conflicts and wars taking place in the world, the last word lies with the stronger side. The 44-day Patriotic War of the Azerbaijani people for Karabakh is the latest example of this. Over the past 17 years, we have gained strength and crushed the enemy with an iron fist. Thirty years of occupation and injustice were ended in 44 days.

virtualkarabakh.az

karabakh war 2020 essay

Other themes

Patriotic War

Address by President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Victorious Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev to the nation - 08.11.2020

Tripartite statement

Tripartite statement

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has addressed the nation - 01.12.2020

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has addressed the nation - 01.12.2020

Azerbaijani cities, settlements and villages liberated from occupation

Azerbaijani cities, settlements and villages liberated from occupation

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Armenian Digital Communications in Karabakh War of 2020: Critical Discourse Analysis

Profile image of Anahit Hakobyan

2021, Journal of Sociology: Bulletin of Yerevan University

The role of media and communication in modern military conflicts is becoming more and more relevant. In this regard, the Karabakh war of 2020 was significant։ it was the first large-scale war in the modern history of Armenia, which took place under the conditions and with the use of digital communications. The article provides a critical discourse analysis of war framing in digital communications. The analysis revealed the techniques and mechanisms of framing, the underlying stereotypes, myths and ideologies, as well as the role of social networks in digital communications that accompanied military operations.

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karabakh war 2020 essay

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This article aims to contribute to the available data, presenting exemplary sources that may constitute point of reference for experts who seek information on sociological, anthropological and ethnological dimensions of the topic. It is crucial to highlight the evidence on some main aspects concerning Azerbaijan, on which there is a lack of precise information. Possibilities of a potential reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan are exposed indicating existing disadvantages of the process. Articles from the press, interviews with experts; interviews with expatriates of Armenian origin that lived in Azerbaijan; an interview with soldiers captured during military operations versus Armenia are offered. Historical sources and contemporary official data presented. Despite critique and debates against an anthropological defense, this article brings forward information that might offer ideas on conflict solving perspectives within war studies. Article attempts to state paramount importance of growing awareness on the exploitation of the ignorance of masses by some activists and press,concluded primarily through social media. Furthermore, article aims to oppose people's attitude of passively accepting fake news without scrupulous investigation. http://wiedzaobronna.edu.pl/index.php/wo

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In this article we examine how Armenian Genocide denialism is expressed and why it took place in urban areas and symbolic spaces during the Second Karabakh War. Denialism took the form of a 'battle' against Armenian heritage and Genocide-related memorials, from destruction to vandalism, from the heroization of old perpetrators of violence to direct violence against Turkish and diasporic Armenian communities. The denial of the Armenian Genocide penetrated the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Alongside Turkey, Azerbaijan also denies the Armenian Genocide and campaigns against its international recognition. The discussion will address the following questions: How was Turkish denialism symbolically reproduced in the Second Karabakh War narratives as an expression of a political strategy? How was denialism linked to the different urban settings and the transnational context? How was it transferred from the Syrian War to the Karabakh War in terms of symbols, actors and narratives?

Caucasus Strategic Perspectives

Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun

When the conflict escalated in the Nagorno-Karabakh war zone in September 2020, different opinions emerged in Ukraine on how the clash should be understood and which of its sides Ukraine should support. Most Ukrainian commentators compared the legal situation of the occupied territories belonging to Ukraine to the occupied territories belonging to Azerbaijan. This is why Kyiv officially stands for Baku. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s support is limited to a diplomatic declaration only. Apart from the official position, there are also individual voices in Ukraine demanding either Kyiv’s greater involvement in helping Azerbaijan or, on the contrary, support for Armenia. The Ukrainian discourse on the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict does not have to coincide with the assessments of the parties directly involved in the clash, because the Ukrainians interpret Caucasian events through the lens of the Ukrainian–Russian war. This paper highlights the Ukrainian discourse over the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict. The commentary focuses on both the Ukrainian mainstream political declarations and media perceptions of the Armenia–Azerbaijan clashes.

Bee Hive - Dayan Center TAU Social Media Watch Bulletin

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Esmira Jafarova

The year 2020 was to become a decisive time for the three-decades-long Armenia– Azerbaijan conflict. The 44-day-long war between Armenia and Azerbaijan resulted in the liberation of the Azerbaijani territories that had been under occupation by the armed forces of Armenia for nearly 30 years. The negotiation process, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group since 1992, did not yield any tangible results in terms of facilitating a final resolution of the conflict. This commentary will focus on the most recent events in the run-up to the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that lasted from September 27 to November 10, 2020, and will offer some thoughts on the war itself and the myths and misperceptions associated with the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict. The war was brought about by the unconstructive position and denialism of the leadership of Armenia across the entire duration of the peace process, which over the last two years, since the ascension to power of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, acquired a new dimension as he ramped up purposeful political and military provocations against Azerbaijan. The 44-day war undermined many myths and changed perceptions in regard to the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict, some of which will be highlighted in this work.

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Farid Shafiyev , Ilaha Chiragova

International media outlets, including through editorials, articles, and news reports, have huge overall impact on the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict by shaping public opinion. The principal purpose behind conducting this research is to provide an analytical tool for the comparative study of the coverage of the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict by the leading international media outlets.

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The paper examines the views and ideas of various military experts and researchers on the war, broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September, 2020. The Second Karabakh has been presented as a sample of the new generation warfare. The authors endeavored to substantiate the importance of the Second Karabakh War in the world’s military history by a variety of conclusive facts. Having considered the uniqueness of this war, a number of important lessons have been introduced in order to understand the nature of future wars.

IMAGES

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  2. Photos: The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

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  3. Photos: The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

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  6. Photos: The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

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VIDEO

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